Writer's Wednesday: Is a blurb part of the story?

 In my review of The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, I noted that I started listening without reading (or re-reading, given how long I'd had the book on hold at the library) the blurb. The way that affected my reading experience made me realize that our blurbs aren't just important for marketing--they are actually part of how most people read our books. That understanding has me working on a better sense of what and how to write the blurbs (book-jacket summary) to improve not just the likelihood that the person looking at it will buy the book, but also their experience of reading the book.

Of course, all the holiday stuff distracted me from this question, so it's taken me until now to write this post, and precious little thinking has taken place. But here are the things I think I get from reading a blurb:

• The main character's name and something about him/her--life circumstances, if not personality.
• Setting. I presumably know genre in the broadest sense, at least, but the blurb will tell me if the SF story takes place on a far-flung planet or a future earth, or the mystery is set in New York City or a small town in Maine.
  
• The main conflict of the story.
• Some sense of the goal.

Diving into a story without knowing any of that isn't a bad thing--but it made me feel like it took extra time to get my footing. On the other hand: maybe I was experiencing the unfolding of the story the way the author intended? 

Ultimately, though, I think that the blurb starts the reader off with a certain sense of being invested in the character(s) even before starting to read. And that has to be a good thing, from a writer's perspective, because it increases the odds that the reader will keep going.

 What do you think? Do you read the blurbs or back-cover copy before you start a book? How do you think that changes your reading experience--and what do you think is most important to find there? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Oh, and don't forget to check out my books at the Smashwords End of Year Sale! Rebecca's Smashwords Page.

Oops--looks like time to update the "all covers" image, too!

SF Review: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet

 

 Title: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (Wayfarers #1)

Author: Becky Chambers. Read by Rachel Dulude

Publication Info: Tantor Audio, 2016. 14 1/2 hours. Hardback by Hodder & Stoughton, 2015; 404 pages.

Source: Library digital services

Blurb: 

Rosemary Harper doesn’t expect much when she joins the crew of the aging Wayfarer. While the patched-up ship has seen better days, it offers her a bed, a chance to explore the far-off corners of the galaxy, and most importantly, some distance from her past. An introspective young woman who learned early to keep to herself, she’s never met anyone remotely like the ship’s diverse crew, including Sissix, the exotic reptilian pilot, chatty engineers Kizzy and Jenks who keep the ship running, and Ashby, their noble captain.

Life aboard the Wayfarer is chaotic and crazy—exactly what Rosemary wants. It’s also about to get extremely dangerous when the crew is offered the job of a lifetime. Tunneling wormholes through space to a distant planet is definitely lucrative and will keep them comfortable for years. But risking her life wasn’t part of the plan. In the far reaches of deep space, the tiny Wayfarer crew will confront a host of unexpected mishaps and thrilling adventures that force them to depend on each other. To survive, Rosemary’s got to learn how to rely on this assortment of oddballs—an experience that teaches her about love and trust, and that having a family isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the universe.  (Goodreads)

My Review: 

This was my second book by Becky Chambers; I picked up her novella, To Be Taught, If Fortunate on the recommendation of Jemima Pett and was so taken with the author's style that I put myself on the holds list for this one. I then waited so long I'd totally forgotten what the book was about before I got it, so I did something I seldom do: I read (listened to) the book without any preconceptions as to what the story would be. I'll be writing more about that in another post.

This is not my father's science fiction (I'll admit that most of the SF I read is from the 80s, at the latest). This was a book that delves deeply into personal relations (and inter-species relations), while at the same time being a pretty wild space-opera. It's an interesting combo, made the moreso by the position of humans in the galaxy--as a hint, we aren't the top folks, and no one makes a big deal of it. The creation of the different species of sapients (and the relations between them) is in-depth and convincing, and the whole thing a bit daunting to someone like me who likes to knock out a bit of allegedly SF flash-fiction from time to time. Ms. Chambers' world-building is seriously impressive.

 Ms. Dulude does a good job of reading, but I couldn't help noticing a couple of consistently mispronounced words, of the sort I would have expected to be caught and corrected. She does a great job creating the many voices and accents of multiple species, though, so I forgave her. 

 I liked this so much I immediately checked out and started listening to the second book in the Wafarers Trilogy, A Closed and Common Orbit, which was also excellent. It's worth knowing, though, that the three books are free-standing, though the second features some minor characters from the first (I haven't gotten to the third yet, but I will--and to anything else Chambers has written).

My Recommendation:

This is for pretty much any lover of science fiction, with its elements of space opera, "hard SF" (she's sound on the technical stuff), and those who consider that relationships between characters are an integral part of a good story. There are a couple of scenes I'd rate somewhere between PG-13 and R (PG-17?)--nothing to make you blush, but I seem to recall that some sex happens.

FTC Disclosure: I checked The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet out of my library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising." 

All I want for Christmas...

As this very difficult holiday season moves into gear, I am moved to do as many do and write about the gifts we want. Not me as a writer, but me as a person who is struggling with a grief that is sometimes hard to bear, or to tell apart from depression (note: I understand there is a difference between grief and depression. But they can feel an awful lot alike). So here is...

What the Grieving Widow* Wants for Christmas

Okay, the answer to that is obvious. But even in my most irrational moments, some part of my brain knows I can't have what I really want (the science-fiction lover in me would vote for time travel so I can fix it myself). So what do I want that I *can* have?

1. The ability to remember that those horrible moments when the world is a sucking black hole won't last forever. I don't mean won't last as in I'll be less devastated in a year or two, but awareness that the black hole comes and goes on a pretty short cycle. If I can hold on for an hour or a day, I'll find that the world has some color again.

2. I'm certainly not alone in this one, but I would really like this stinking, rotten, lousy COVID to be gone, so I can go get all the hugs I need from all my friends. I don't know if I wanted to hold a funeral, but I am pretty mad at the virus for not even giving me that choice.

3. Notes and cards. All those people who sent stuff in the first weeks are vastly appreciated. I still need you.

4. Someone to share the little decisions. Okay, that's kind of wishing him back again. But seriously, I don't know how all you single parents and lone people out there do it. I managed somehow for a lot of years, but I'm used to being a pair now, and it's hard.

5. Okay, the writer wants something, too. Aside from sales (what we always want), I want people to let me know they are reading my books, and let me know when something I write gives them pleasure. A review won't hurt, but you don't have to do that. Just let me know I'm not writing into a void.

 

*I really hate that word "widow." But there it is. Also, I had to edit this and remove a lot of cuss words.

There it is, and thanks for letting me rant. I am very grateful for amazingly supportive family and friends who have held me together so far, and show no signs of letting go. I'm especially grateful to have some of them around me this Christmas, which we all know is going to kind of suck.